On Liminality

Did some research on liminality (yes David it is a word!) and found this (below)which I think relates to our goals and process of making MLAB. The bus is/will be a point of entry - this in between space - neither here nor there - as it is both attached to the school and separate from the school. And when the students enter this suspended zone, the mlab space- they will feel suspended from the daily grind/activities or rituals of typical school life - hopefully freeing them up to be creative, see the world differently- and return to their traditional society a changed person. Robert Rauchenberg said his work operated in the gaps between art and life - liminality. Liminlaity is about both separateness and connectedness - a moment of suspended norms and boundaries -also a way of thinking about our collaborative process in class; we are both teacher - student - and design collaborators, individuals and a collective team. Read on...

"The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives. During the liminal stage, the between stage, one's status becomes ambiguous; one is "neither here nor there," one is "betwixt and between all fixed points of classification," and thus the form and rules of both his earlier state and his state-to-come are suspended. For the moment, one is an outsider; one is on the margins, in an indeterminate state. Turner is fascinated by this marginality, this zone of indeterminacy. He argues that it is from the standpoint of this marginal zone that the great artists, writers, and social critics have been able to look past the social forms in order to see society from the outside and to bring in a message from beyond it. "Victor Turner, Universtiy of Chicago